Kimi no Tameni
by kyotostars
Summary: 君のために — "I want to know... what being alive truly means. When you said you wanted to live for me... it made me want to live too.”
1. 君のために

Epigraph

* * *

The new ideal, which was to be born in pain, was about doing a hateful and dangerous action for the sake of decency. They knew that the fight was to be fought in blood and death without reward. They would get nothing but the unmarketable conscience of having done what they ought to do in spite of fear — something which wicked people have often debased by calling it glory with too much sentiment, but which is glory all the same.

* * *

T.H. White

_─── The Once and Future King_


	2. Chapter 1: Heartless

Notes 注解: this story is an alternate universe of the original Hakuouki anime. The timeline is still about the same, but the setting is slightly different. Additionally, Souji is an oni in this story because I thought it would be an interesting concept to explore, especially since he's unaware about this heritage for the most part. Lastly, I do not own Hakuouki or any of its characters, they belong to Idea Factory. _Warning / graphic descriptions of violence and blood._

《 Souji Okita x Protagonist 》

君のために — For You

_I met you on that rainy day,_

_and my life began to change._

* * *

**Chapter One**

" 心ない "

Heartless

* * *

_"The boy soldier was as beautiful as a porcelain doll, but he was as cold and merciless as the snow."_

* * *

The scintillescent incandescence of chiliadal lanterns enlightened the frosty city of nightfall with mellow, flaxen fluorescence, the infinitesimal flames of countless candles oscillating heartily within lucid glass as they flitted across myriads of moonlight and shadow. Despite the war, the usual algid placidity was well gone, replaced with fleeting jubilance and merriment. The streets were bright as day, brimming with the delectable scent of cinnamon and sugar and lighthearted mirth.

But the affable laughter of the people that passed him faded into the distance, melted into the hazy, jovial radiance of the holiday. His boots sounded mutely against the cobblestone pathway, coppery hair turned aureate in the rapturous luminescence of Christmas Eve. The sword at his side clinked in time with his steps, too uncouthly for his little frame, but he didn't notice. The only presence that mattered was the statuesque, broad-shouldered silhouette already further ahead on the path he followed, an eminent light in the deleterious caliginosity of warfare. He had the virtue of nobility, and yet never arrogance; he was effulgent, emanating warmth, resolution, and audacity all at once. An interminable aspiration, the raison d'être that lasted regardless of what had been lost.

The aforementioned man stopped in place and turned inquisitively, amber irises set aflame by the lucent coruscation of candlelight. They settled upon the boy, standing quietly amidst the radiance, his milky pale visage roseate with cold. Despite the austere black military attire, he was angelic, virile features bearing semblance to a marble sculpture. The heartening relucence of the city flecked his emerald eyes with gold, bedimmed in the obscurity of his long lashes.

"What is it, Souji?" The young captain asked, a hint of worry overt in his voice.

Souji reached out a slender white hand to catch the feathery cold that descended from the dreary December sky, emerald eyes disquisitive. "It's snowing," he murmured softly.

"That is because we are further north. Do you know why snow is like rebirth, Souji?" He gazed fondly at the resplendent city, tilting his head to the sky in complacent reticence. The imperceptible envoys of winter had collated atop the intricate lampposts, amassing over the ice that coated the streets and glistening upon the silvery upon the barren brambles. In the wintry winds, the ashen flecks cavorted and fell and materialized into vapor, nimble and yet apathetic as they adorned the city in lactescent, achromatic frost.

"Tomorrow, it will cover the world in bloodless white. It'll be as if this city has been reborn." The snowflakes that had settled on his clothes vanished into nothing, a spark of fire extinguished in imperturbable cold.

"It's gone," Souji realized, bemused; the snow had thawed away in the warmth of his pale hand, leaving an inconspicuous bite of cold. "Kondou-san, have I broken it?"

The imminent proximity between them did nothing to hinder the desultory distance. Instead, the captain felt as if he had encroached on a funeral procession. "No, Souji. It has merely melted into your body. Eventually, it will return to the earth from which it came."

The boy's eyes wandered to the rows of lifeless, insensate lanterns, unpropitiously solemn and grave despite the blithe of the city. The snow upon them had yet to dissolve at all. "Are there different types of snow? The ones that do melt... and those that do not?"

"No, snow fluxes upon contact with warmth," the captain explained patiently. "It merely piles atop things that are cold."

"So... I am warm? I thought snow would not melt on my hand," said Souji.

"You are alive. Of course you are warm."

"Is that so?" Souji's big emerald eyes fluttered in perplexed disconcertion. "But I am always told that I seem to be so very cold, not unlike the ice."

"By whom?"

"Well... many people apart from Kondou-san."

Upon lack of an immediate response, the child peered into the captain's eyes, in them emulated his own fair features. "But they aren't very wrong. I am Kondou-san's weapon."

An incommodious silence ensued for an enduring moment.

"No, Souji," said the captain finally, kneeling on the ground beside the boy. His green eyes were too innocent, too puerile. "Listen to me. You do not know anything except how to fight, it's true. However, please try to understand my values. If you do so, perhaps you will become less of the tool you are now viewed as. You are not a weapon in need of a master. You need not take orders from me or from anyone else in this world. Only then will you be free. Do you understand?" His smile was weary and drawn, as if the years of warfare had finally caught up to him, but as kind as ever nonetheless. The lethargy did not reach the warmth of his eyes. "Do not be my weapon. Be Souji."

* * *

【新選組】

* * *

At first, war was only a distant threat lingering along the horizon. For one, the continent had seen peace for two hundred years, and skirmishes were quickly resolved without much issue. Further, no one was willing to break the four-nation alliance, no matter how much it crumbled, or how much of a fallacy it was in the first place. However, it was inevitable that the shadow of war would once again become a threat, so long as greed continued to rule humans as its subjects. The North, ever the nationalists, had expended much on militarily expenses and attempted to claim Southern territory in a struggle to repair its faltering economy. After a battalion of failed treaties, each proving less effective than the last, the two nations had turned instead to a standoffish tension.

Meanwhile, the East and West had never seen eye-to-eye with each other, whether because of differing religions or their respective competitive tendencies to best the other. And so altercations were constant, though never were they fatal. In time, clear alliances formed, and the continent saw itself divided for the first time in two centuries.

North with West, South with East.

As rigidity grew by the day and riots and assassinations skyrocketed to previously unprecedented rates, every citizen found themselves roused to fight should the need arise.

Within the South was an ancient, renowned noble family situated in the capital of Kyoto: Kondou. Classically regarded by Southerners as war heroes, their reputation had become somewhat of a mythology, stemming off from the day the first head of the family, then merely a humble peasant, drove away invaders from the South with his brilliant strategies and devoted loyalty to the salvation of his country.

And so, those raised within the Kondou family learned to respect all and everyone, regardless of their beginnings; their ancestor had proved very much so that a person's origins mattered not in regards to their societal value.

Traditionally, perhaps to follow the grandeur of their predecessors, the family would have its male children serve in the army for at least a few years. As Isami's father had put it, a man could not be a proper one before he had done service to his country.

So it was under such circumstances that Isami found his life violently altered from leisurely afternoons spent in sunlit parlors and mock battles upon training grounds to marching through trenches and blood with the lowly rank of unit corporal.

But things changed quickly. They always did. And soon enough, he found himself promoted to captain.

And so the charade went on as life did. He'd always had the lamentable obligation to act proper and dignified no matter the circumstance given the standing of his family, and fighting for the sake of one's country was seen as a noble action. Though, he would later come to question himself, what was honorable in the slightest about dying as yet another nameless soldier as a puppet of the government?

The story begins with the aforementioned turning point in the life of the supposed 23rd heir of the Kondou family, and the boy soldier who regarded him as master.

* * *

【新選組】

* * *

"Hey, you." The man nudged the small body with the apex of his shoe. "Get up." In the miasmic effluvia of shrapnel that smothered the vapid atmosphere of the battlefield, Isami could barely discern the creature that stirred in the presence of the furor and rose precariously.

"It" was a boy. An unsightly mess of an adolescent no more than ten years old. His clothes were revoltingly drab, salvaged from ragged oddments of threadbare cloth and soiled with dry, corrugated blood. But nevertheless, he was not merely a child in decrepit, unseeming clothing; he was beguilingly beautiful.

Too prepossessing, too transcendental, like an eidolic saint of artless, amaranthine pulchritude that would outvie the austerity of time.

His russet hair shrouded his cadaverous, porcelain features, as brittle and dainty as a marionette in contradistinction to his unfrastidious accoutrements. Too many scratches and grazes marred his face. His emerald irises were visible through the apertures of his disheveled coppery locks, ludicrously large and auroral. The sight evoked an indecipherable sense of melancholy within the convoluted depths of the Isami's heart.

He watched as the child crumpled on the ground, his small frame bleeding abundantly.

"Do you intend to disobey me?" Isami watched his superior seize the boy's head depravedly in a contemning demeanor that reeked of imperious oppression.

In an amaurotic haze of anger, Isami shoved the man's arm away from the child. What would the world say if they saw Serizawa Kamo, top army official of the South, abducting and abusing war orphans? Laughable, certainly.

The amiable facade that had shrouded them both in surreptitious fallacy dissolved to animosity at once. "Stop that! Don't be violent with a boy! He's hurt, can't you see? Please, Serizawa-san, orphans of war are not playthings! A medic should be found for him immediately!"

Serizawa merely guffawed with unscrupulous conviction, as if Isami's patent mortification were a preposterous crusade for hallucinatory equity. Through his repugnance, his lips formed a opprobrious, grimalkin smile of degradation; he was no more than a man consumed wholly by his own condescending antipathy.

"Do you wish to rebel as well, Isami-kun? As I recall, you are merely a low-ranking unit corporal, and your familial status means nothing here. By the communiqué of the military you are to adhere to me. Shall I report your insurgence to the officials?"

"I apologize, Serizawa-san, for my impertinence. However, I cannot allow such detestable treatment of a child!"

"A child?" Serizawa appeared palpably amused. "You're kidding, Isami-kun. You see, I have been using it as a weapon, and for three months it has been commendably effective." He pointed nonchalantly to a corpse that lay soundlessly beside them, tone lighthearted and indifferent. "See for yourself. That one there was a courtesy of it." A flicker of hysteric mania appeared in his eyes. "I found it abandoned on an island along the eastern shoreline of the continent a while back. It doesn't talk and barely needs any sleep. Its wounds heal immediately after infliction."

He inclined his head to a near contiguous distance with a revoltingly intimate smile. "And the best part of all... you tell him to kill, and he'll do it. All he wants are orders."

Hereupon Serizawa's horrific words, Isami reached for the child and held him with firm gentleness to his own chest. The boy trembled imperceptibly in his arms, irresolute and frail. He clung to the black uniform as if it were a vessel come to save him from Hell.

"This is inadmissible; it's nonsense, Serizawa-san! I can't allow you to hurt him this way."

Serizawa's sneer faded, devoting the strained rigidity between them to immedicable chagrin. He eyed the boy with supercilious condescension, as if the child were a disparaging blaspheme against humanity.

"Then take it. I planned to dispose of it when the war ended, but it seems that such a task would be impossible with its ability."

The fear is his voice was irrefutable. Serizawa was truly, unassailably afraid, Isami realized. He wondered then what could possibly be so frightening about an adorable little boy.

"Take it far away from me, Isami-kun. Use it for all it's worth. When you're done, kill it." His leer was derisive, contumely, distorted with grievous hatred. "Make it a painful demise if you can. For all the things it has done, it deserves worse that death."

* * *

【新選組】

* * *

His fingers interlocked tightly around the lamp, the tangerine flame ailing in the cold as it shivered feebly; the meager warmth it enkindled vaporized to nothing in the umbrageous placidity of night. The decrementing moonbeams illuminated the darkness of the chamber, obscuring the child's features in spheroidal shadow. His large virescent eyes were vacant and phlegmatic; beautiful, but hauntingly disconsolate and emotionless. They reminded Isami of shattered glass. Never before had he seen a child so devoid of hope. But this boy had witnessed the atrocities of humanity, and they had broken him, perhaps beyond the point words could contemplate.

"I believe you are not a weapon, and so I cannot just refer to you without a proper name," Isami murmured. "Do you not have one?"

Silence. The boy recoiled querulously and cowered within the corner, the wary trepidation apparent in his luculent irises. Isami found it unsurprising, given that he had lived under constant abuse for the past few months.

"If you cannot speak, I understand."

"Souji." The boy said softly. His voice was discordant, fractured and unused for so long. "Just Souji."

"It's very nice to meet you, Souji," Isami said kindly.

"Who... are you...?" Souji asked hesitantly. "I've heard the other soldiers call you by rank."

Isami's smile faded. The world of society was consumed by people hiding within the desultory safety of masks made of power and ranks.

Masks ready to dispel into thin air the moment their societal standing capitulated into nothingness.

But now, he had a chance to be himself, for once. No obligations. No acting.

"I'm not so unlike you, Souji," said the captain. "To be honest with you, I'd rather you not do the same."

He gently wrapped his jacket around the boy's thin body and sat beside him, the lantern's mellow luminescence scaling the plain brownstone walls with newly kindled life and reflecting off both their faces as Souji gratefully clasped the jacket tighter around himself.

"Because, I am just... Isami Kondou."

* * *

【新選組】

* * *

The sounds of explosions echoed in the distance, clouding the crepuscular air with smoke and the acrid scent of gunpowder. The irenic tranquility of night was appallingly unharmonized with the atrocity of war. The dust that permeated across the battlefield committed the clearing to turmoil, and the hazy milieu made impossible the attempt to ascertain friend from foe. Smoke had obscured everything, from the blackened sky to the phantasmagorical moonlight.

The noises of gunfire resounded through the trench, and Isami shook his head rapidly to obliterate the disorientation, ears ringing from both the reverberation and the unsightly, recurrent image of ammunition used against humanity by humanity to kill. Vaguely, he wondered if he had already found his way to Hell. The world had become a downward spiral into the abyss of moral degeneration. But it was then that the voice of purity brought him back to the present, no more than a hazy glow of light.

"Your orders, Kondou-san."

Souji, who needed him to keep his mind intact. Souji, who had no acquaintance except for him, no more than a child lost amidst a world of ghosts. His home, his country, his family, waiting for him an intangible distance away in a haven of transient safety. But at the inquiry, Isami hesitated. Any advance would inevitably prove futile if the cannons kept firing. But to dismantle the artillery... they would have to infiltrate the enemy camp and cross into the opposing trench.

It didn't take a brilliant strategist to figure out that, at the mercy of the fog, it was a suicide mission. There were too many enemies to kill quickly, unless...

He glanced one last time at the angelic creature, regret immersing his heart at the thought of sentencing a being as innocent to abhorrent, eternal damnation. The angel, whose wings would be painted black with blood. Beside him, Souji awaited his assignment in silence, the ruinous carnage reflected in the forest green speculums of his eyes. Such was a thing a child never should have witnessed.

"Souji." He knew that the order he was about to execute was implacably ghastly. "Souji... kill."

When he next opened his eyes, the boy had vanished into the opacity of the battlefield without a sound.

Through the ashen fuliginosity, Souji careened through the transient veil of smoke and around the conglomerations of bodies strewn unceremoniously across the battlefield with the agility of a dormouse scuttling to the sheltered safety of its burrow.

Nearby, the gleam of a lantern flickered meekly through the adumbral remnants of the prior detonation; a single soldier stood beneath a black flag adorned with a star pattern, connoting alliance to the North.

Souji paused abruptly. A rifle would expel any hope for an abstruse infiltration. He unsheathed the long blade at his side instead. The flummoxed antagonist made a muffled cry of revulsion seconds before his demise, mouth agape to howl a premonition as he scrambled for his weapon. Souji slit his throat before he had the chance to do so. The man collapsed lifelessly to the ground like a marionette bereft of strings, exanimate eyes still wide open.

The lantern crashed to the ground, still interdigitated in the languid hand of the enemy soldier; flames kindled from the remnants of shattered glass, devouring his body.

Nearing the enemy camp, Souji broke into a run, snatching the bayonet with one hand, the sword in the other. Fire ignited the desolate woodland with terrible speed, the fiery cackle immersing the recurrent wails, devoting the world to inscrutable, atrocious discord.

"Commander, the woods are aflame! Are we under attack — "

Souji fired a few consecutive shots at the voices for tryout, using the fog as cover for his identity. The screams and frantic commands that arose and intermixed told him he'd found the right location.

"AAAAHHH! IT HURTS!"

"Kill it! Don't let it near us!"

The debiliated soldiers had left the commander unprotected and in the next second, the enemy officer collapsed lifelessly in his own blood.

For a moment, the Northern soldiers could only stare, enervated temporarily by the unanticipated brutality.

"Whatever that thing is, BLOW IT UP!" Someone cried amidst the turmoil, and together a few soldiers began arranging the artillery to aim at the undisclosed enemy. But the artilleryman was dead before he had even readied the cannon.

The inconspicuous intruder at last revealed themselves, as if they had waited all this time for the chaos to reach its height. Amidst the smokescreen stood a single soldier, a small silhouette no taller than a child.

"What... is that?!" Came an awed inquiry with no answer.

The soldier launched themselves into the unrest of the enemy camp, clearly unnerved by the greater numbers present. They carried a gun in one hand and a blade in the other, shooting or stabbing people they passed by. Their aim was flawlessly immaculate, and ammunition was never wasted as they came closer still, unhindered by the growing aggregation of bodies or the soldiers who had attempted to stop them and were killed immediately. At last the intruder reached the heart of the gathering, having even the audacity to leap onto the barrel of the cannon with impossible agility, exposing themselves to the Northern army.

The forest of smoke and debris that had once obscured the circumambient milieu had cleared, and there in the haze stood an auburn-haired, green-eyed boy. He wore a bloodstained uniform of the Southern Alliance, the only indication that he was a soldier. The Northern soldiers were taken aback not only by his youthful age, but his striking beauty. The sanguinary clothing clashed appallingly with his appearance, as if they really didn't belong upon the child at all.

"If you do not wish to die, surrender now." The boy said simply, leveling the sword at the flabberghasted crowd. His face was pale as the moon; huge, bloodshot emerald eyes gleamed in the luminosity of night, silently demanding submission. "Those unwilling to abandon their weapons will be killed."

The battle restarted without hesitation, and as hordes of soldiers raised their weapons to attack him the boy tilted his head as if in resignation.

"The warning was given."

No matter how impeccable one's skill, or how competent a weapon they wielded, it was beyond comprehension that a single soldier could face an entire enemy camp all alone. But nevertheless, a shower of dead bodies erupted around the boy as blood rained to the soil. In the tempest of crimson, he was the personification of death itself, just as beautiful and merciless.

Rifles fired point-blank at the near-invisible executioner, projectiles rocketing with mindless inaccuracy into the fray. Through the chaotic reign of terror he had aroused, Souji hacked at every nearest thing, leaving countless corpses in his soundless wake. When his gun ran out of bullets, he abandoned it in favor of stealing weapons from the fallen enemy soldiers, and these said armaments — pistols, rifles, daggers, anything — were profoundly more vicious in his hands. He had no difficulty eliminating even soldiers much bigger than he was, his small frame weaving through the turmoil like an acrobat. Blood and flesh splattered, littering the ground with gore and dismembered limbs. The bodies were left irrevocably unrecognizable.

Indistinguishable. Mutilated. Dead.

A short while later, Isami and the rest of the Southern troops arrived at the enemy camp, only to find a Hell of agonized shrieks and a sea of bodies before they had even approached.

Through the flames, the captain stared, anesthetized, rendered unable to issue any further command. Rationality battled instinct for domination of his mind as he watched Souji fight, emerald eyes turned gold with the reflection of rising flames. Those eyes, emotionless and lifeless as ever even as he killed, and killed...

Here was a malignant creature loved dearly by the specters of death. A demon beyond redemption, without conscience or remorse.

And yet, this demon was merely a child; a victim forced against his will into warfare and and destruction. Souji only reflected the crimes people committed against themselves, Isami realized. The real fault fell to those that commanded him.

The captain barely heard his own command to his regiment. "Follow him!"

For a vague, whimsical moment, time decelerated, and for a heartbeat clockwork stood still as confounded amber irises met dispassionate emerald through the pandemonium. In the haze of the upheaval, their gazes interlocked in a wordless exchange, Souji was no more than a monster with the competence of a thousand soldiers and the heart of a machine. The abhorrent display of slaughter sent an involuntary convulsion of horror through the captain's body, cold as a hiemal rivulet of water.

But there was only a forlorn acceptance in the child's eyes, a nostalgic peace that blossomed from the fruit of bloodshed. A pained and yet understanding recognition that his fate was to perish amidst the detrimental wars of humanity.

And Isami could only watch as the boy disappeared into the smoke, unable to evict himself of the caitiff charade. All this time, he had never kept Souji safe. He had used him, lied to him... fooled him. And for what? Power? Victory? No, Souji wasn't the monster at all in this predicament.

He caught one last glimpse of the familiar copper-hued hair, turned white as snow in the cerise glow of the inferno... in time to see the tool he had salvaged become a beast and the boy indefinitely gone.

* * *

【新選組】

* * *

The war two hundred years ago, despite it's age, remained an unfathomable mystery that stirred the four cardinal nations. There were no remnants of intruders in the first place, and it had ended as suddenly as it had begun; almost overnight, all conflict had quieted, and so it was assumed that the adversary had surrended and retreated. But where to, no one knew.

Some historians claimed it a myth, while others claimed that the enemy hadn't been humans at all, and rather they were _oni,_ a supernatural specimen with cryptic origins and even less decipherable abilites. Of course, the second hypothesis immediately resulted in panic; the continent in its entirety was inexpicably paranoid in regards to witchcraft, as witnessed by century upon century of futile "witch hunts" that yielded no particularly astounding results despite all the casualties it produced. It seemed, however, that the passing of time had successfully left behind such idiocy. Or so people thought.

It was no surprise that in time, rumors spread like wildfire; that Isami Kondou, the son of one of the most prestigious families of the South, kept a boy soldier celebrated by the Southern Alliance as a gift from the heavens and feared by the Northernists as the devil himself; that the child had a demonic beauty and impossible prominence in battle and was most certainly inhuman.

At first, they were just rumors among any other that occurred amidst the propaganda of war. And then, there came the first strange reports that resurrected the old fears. Fears thought to have perished on the day the government formally declared the end of the witch hunts. That the North had recruited Mephistophelian monsters with hair the color of snow, and eyes as radiant as golden suns. As documents claimed, their abilities far surpassed the normal human soldier, and their supernatural abilities allowed them to heal from even fatal inflictions within seconds.

Being the practical man that he was, Isami dismissed these reports of diabolical, unholy soldiers like a forgotten afterthought. At times like this, dissolving into a state of disorder because of mere rumors would be exactly what the North wanted. A powerful military was one thing, but _legends_ and _chichanery_ were certainly another.

And then, he had found Souji. He had watched the boy's body repair itself from what should have spelled death for anyone else.

He had seen him do horrific things that should have been impossible for a child who appeared as frail and harmless.

Legends had become truth and truth had become lies.

But it was also undeniable that Isami trusted Souji wholeheartedly. The boy had saved his life too many times to count, and they'd been together through it all; losses, victories, promotions. Though, as he steadily climbed the precarious ladder of ranks he found it all the harder to keep Souji a secret.?

With the thought in mind, Isami absently checked his gun for potential issues as he started considering a possible post-war home for Souji.

Operation Rochess was scheduled for the next night. The end of war was steadily approaching, and theoretically, victory belonged to the South-East Alliance if they could conquer the last enemy stronghold stationed at Rochess castle in the Northern city.

If they made it out alive, the boy would need some place to stay. Although a competent soldier, Souji's other attributes and talents could certainly be put to better use. He deserved to have the childhood of a normal boy, cherished by a loving family and devoid of pain, with soft plush toys surrounding him rather than weaponry. But that would be impossible if he continued to be chained to a soldier like Kondou.

Isami had given him as much of a home as a constantly mobile military could offer and taught him manners; he never killed aside from when ordered, and remained respectfully quiet in most circumstances, having interacted with only the captain despite five years spent in the military. If he was around ten years old at the time they had met, he would be about fifteen now, still too young to live on his own.

But how would he find a family willing to take in a... what word defined Souji best? "Weapon" might have seemed most appropriate, but that was most certainly not the only thing the child was. Regardless, he would definitely have a hard time convincing others how sweet and loyal Souji was.

"Souji," he called out to the boy who sat beside him, gingerly cleaning his sword, "I have a feeling that the war will end very soon."

"Yes, Kondou-san."

"Would you like it if I found a new home for you? You would have new parents, and you wouldn't have to fight anymore."

"I don't need any parents," Souji said, without a trace of doubt in his voice. "Kondou-san is enough." He blinked uncertainly, and a familiar trace of fear appeared in his striking eyes. "Am I no longer useful to you, Kondou-san?"

The passing years had only made the boy more handsome than ever before, and in the flickering lamplight his face was waxen and beautiful. With his flawless alabaster skin, he would have no problems putting even the most irresistible of actors to shame. While a normal child at Souji's age would have still had a cherubic face and a carefree smile, the boy's extremely sophisticated features and insouciant eyes made him appear almost as a matured man.

"That's not it, Souji, it's just that I — "

"I want to stay by your side forever, Kondou-san. I want to keep taking orders from you forever! Please don't throw me away!" His emerald eyes gleamed with unshed tears. "I want to protect Kondou-san."

"Souji! You won't need my orders any longer after the war!" Isami fought, rather forcefully. "Do you intend to fight forever? I want you to live the rest of your days in happiness, not in Hell, to find a family that can properly care for you!"

"I... is that an order?"

"No, it's only... my desire. Though, I do wish you can fulfill it, Souji." Isami smiled wearily at the boy. "After tomorrow... I don't think you will need any more orders from me at all."

* * *

【新選組】

* * *

The room they had stealthily sneaked into was the highest in the spire of the castle, about six stories above ground. With its lavishly adorned columns and domed ceiling filled with intricate paintings, it appeared as merely a rather exquisite antic rather than an enemy military fortress. It was an uncomfortable position for a confrontation despite its magnificence, however, given that the room was surrounded by both a ring of doorways on the current floor and a balcony above.

Rochess was an ancient city in the heart of the continent reknowned for its architecture, and even the looming threat of war it ceased to diminish its sublime, timeless aura.

The buildings were too lovely to destroy, in Isami's opinion. But Rochess was also an important military standpoint within the North, a symbol to the Nationalists. And so, the question because instead _how_ to destroy the fortified city rather than _why_ it was necessary to ruin the gifts from time.

The marble floor echoed strangely under their military boots as the faction filed into the corridor. The silence was unnerving; they had been allowed come this far without any sign of resistance. But unknowing to Isami, their footsteps had already alarmed the nearest soldiers on standby.

"Kondou-san!"

Without a moment of spare, Souji shoved him out of the way of a bullet and aimed at the nearest doorway.

Bang.

More gunshots echoed, and enemy soldiers surged out of the multiple doorways, surrounding them entirely. To make matters worse, more had emerged from the balcony during the distraction.

"Souji! Go upstairs and kill the ones above! Then, fire the flare signal for Toshi's regiment to come. We need reinforcements!" Isami shouted at the boy, who turned away momentarily from mowing through adversaries in one gateway.

Despite never thinking twice at cruel decisions, Souji hesitated. If the entire enemy force was gathered here, he didn't see how the captain could have a chance on his own with the remaining soldiers of his unit.

"But I — "

"I'm saying it as an order! Go, Souji, now!"

As he was barked at, Souji's body moved automatically halfway through as an autopilot response to the direct command. Without being able to reply, he ran up the stairs to the rooftop and kicked open the wooden door that led to the outside world.

The scenery of night nearly took his breath away regardless of its simplicity. The inky black sky was covered with a sugary spread of stars, twinkling cheerily at the world below despite the blanket of smoke, as if indifferent to the altercations of humanity.

"It's the enemy! Kill him!"

Souji turned abruptly. There were five soldiers.

Screams echoed from the penultimate floor, and his heart convulsed in his chest. Kondou-san...

Impatience hindered Souji's ability to fire properly. His heart pounded radically against his chest, so quickly it hurt. In a transient moment of vulnerability, a bullet grazed his arm and his vision blurred momentarily from the pain. It was a gaffe he never usually committed, and inwardly he cursed himself.

"Die..." he swung his blade blindly, emerald irises blazing with feral rage as the blood of those he had already killed splattered the stone floor. He slashed off the limbs of three of the enemies and decapitated the fourth, shredding them to death. The fifth snatched him by the arm and Souji snarled in fury, crushing the man's wrist in his hand until the bones broke.

He was concerned only with the sounds of battle he had left behind.

How long had it been?

Kondou-san was defending him from below. He needed to return as soon as possible.

He shot the soldier through the head and ran to the railing around the rooftop to fire the red signal. Scarlet sparks blossomed into the sky like a flower of light, the fleeting radiance enveloping the castle in an auroral cerise glow.

Before he could move, pain exploded in his side; Souji's legs collapsed beneath him, spilling his body to the floor.

"Aah... ugh..." He had been shot at close range, and the bullet had buried itself deep into his side, preventing the wound from immediately closing.

His senses were faint; any attempt to stand proved futile; his diminutive strength had faded to nothing. Debilitated with pain, he heard a gun being reloaded behind him, and forced his shaking hand to lift the rifle and fire blindly before the soldier could kill him.

"Kondou-san... ah..." Souji staggered upright with a muffled cry of agony. He wasn't supposed to move; blood poured from the wound, and he nearly fell again. Somehow he managed to stagger down the steps from which he came; the only reason his body allowed it was sheer force of will. He left a trail of red in his wake as he limped into the spired room below.

In the unrest, the structure of the domed ceiling had capitulated from countless explosions, leaving the room in deplorable ruin. The once lovely murals upon the walls had been painted with blood, columns disintegrating to disheartened oblivion in place of their formerly exalted grandeur.

An inauspicious plume of umbrous smoke rose from the spired room, reduced to dilapidated rubble. Soldiers throttled the halls, choking the passageways to the brim as they ascended the stairs from inferior floors of the citadel, clashing blindly in relentless conflict.

In a haze of agony, Souji gazed languidly through disheveled locks of copper locks at the penultimate pathway, psychedelic eyes desecrating the unfolding cataclysm in search of his superior officer.

"Kondou-san! Kondou-san!" The boy called, desperately seeking the man. His voice shattered like glass as he cried out.

_"Kondou-san!"_

The captain was crumpled against a pillar, at the mercy of an ominous executioner about to stab him to death with the tip of a bayonet.

"No... _YOU BASTARD!"_

Despite the harrowing severity of his injury, Souji threw his sword at the adversary, cutting open his body. The soldier's hands derailed around the rifle as he collapsed in a nightmarishly atramentous pool of his own blood, but the damage was already done. The tip of the bayonet had perforated the captain's chest.

"Kondou-san!"

Souji stumbled towards his superior officer and collapsed weakly beside him, an imperceptible whimper of pain escaping his bloodied mouth. He could not breathe very well; his ribs were plausibly damaged from the wound he had sustained.

Innumerous bullets had gouged themselves within the captain's body, and he bore wounds of profound severity. He was bleeding profusely; despite the faltering rise and fall of his chest, he was inexplicably near the abhorrent gates of Hell that inevitably awaited. Souji crawled closer to him, his sole obsession the only prospect precluding the last impalpable thread of consciousness from abandoning him.

"Kondou-san, please hold on!" Lethargic with agony, he could scarcely cogitate the way out of the anfractuous architecture. He leaned the captain's body onto his shoulders and began the tedious journey towards the lower floors.

A group of enemy soldiers rushed to block his escape.

"UUUUAAAAHHHHHHH!"

Souji made an inhuman scream and wildly slashed at them. The process was an endless routine. More enemies continued to flood his path, and he would kill them once again, all while carrying his captain. He made very little progress down the stairway.

"Souji..." Isami, who had been unconscious the entire time, managed to open his eyes slightly. "What happened..."

"Kondou-san..." Souji said softly, smiling in relief. "I managed to fire the flare. Now we just have to wait for reinforcements so that we can leave."

Blood dripped from the boy's lips as he coughed; Isami had never before heard his voice as tearful as it was now.

Souji's senses perceived the presence of an enemy nearby and he promptly snatched the rifle that lay quiescent beside him, aiming at the intrusive adversary. From an adjoining vestibule above the stairway, a lone soldier ogled him with wide, disquieted irises, bleeding from several critical wounds.

The soft click resounded through the empty hallway with hollow resonance. Souji's eyes narrowed in fury. Empty.

The soldier turned and gyrated into a new corridor fearfully.

Souji resumed his ceaseless struggle, stumbling down one step at a time. His breaths were shallow and pained. "Kondou-san, we only have three more stories to go; please give me an order."

"Souji..." Isami's eyes were barely open. "Souji, run away."

The boy heaved his captain's body upright, using his own small frame as support. His frail legs trembled under the arduous strain, tatterdemalion habiliments turned sable with blood. "How am I supposed to run away... while Kondou-san is with me?"

"Leave me here... and escape."

Souji's mind was unable to understand the command at first. "Are you telling me to... abandon... you?" He shook his head firmly in refusal and clung tighter to him, obstinate resolve rekindled. "No! I won't leave Kondou-san behind."

Corpses were piled against the stairway, and he began hacking vociferously at all and nothing to clear a pathway. "I will not let Kondou-san die!" Using both of his arms, he held onto the captain's uniform collar to drag the his body further down the stairs, stagnant pace hindered by the insensate bodies disseminated across the ground.

"Please..."

The horrible cacophony of a dispatched cartridge shattered the atmosphere of the despoiled citadel, and Souji cried in pain. Crimson blood pooled from his body, painting his clothes black as it percolated to stone. The sword clattered to the floor with a dull thud; the bullet had severed his limb from the forearm. Crippled with agony, Souji could barely discern through an immobilized haze the soldier he had let escape, perched in distant proximity. The man crumpled lifelessly, his final service to his cause complete.

"Souji!" His captain's voice sounded so very far away.

Notwithstanding his own condition, Souji's eyes coruscated with recalcitrance, disregarding the tremendous pain; with the only arm that remained, he clutched the captain's body with indefatigable obstinacy in spite of the adverse odds against him. His legs quivered violently as he forced his body upright, whereupon he attempted once again to limp further. "I will not run away! If Kondou-san stays, I will remain here and fight! If I am to flee, I will take Kondou-san with me!"

"Souji, stop it..." Kondou winced at the sound of blood vessels rupturing amidst the tumult. Souji no longer exuded the impassive beauty of a demonic creature with inhuman prominence in battle. His ashen countenance was that of a frightened child, maimed and diffident amidst the calamity of warfare.

"I do not want to," Souji said softly, a thin stream of lurid cerise leaking from his mouth. His injured arm hung flaccidly at his side, mangled and unrectifiable. Again and again, he fell and managed to stand back up, until the ground was immersed in a horrific sea of blood. "Just... just a little more..."

"Souji... this is enough. Your arm... your arm is..."

"I'm fine." Another whimper of pain.

"I order you to abandon me!"

"Then I cannot obey this order! No matter what... I will not let Kondou-san die!"

The captain drew a shuddering breath; he was rapidly losing susceptibility of his body as his life drained to depletion. "No, Souji, I'll be okay, even if it's the end for me. However, you must live, for both of us. I... cannot allow you to die before you have truly been alive."

_Before you've even been free._

Souji's arm was bleeding heavily, the spilt cruor incongruously discernible against the pallid stonework of the fortress. "I do not understand," He whimpered, emerald eyes welling with tears. "I do not understand, Kondou-san! How do I live? I am alive now, am I not?"

"To live... means to learn empathy. To feel emotion and have human flaws. To see all the colors in this world, to understand love, and to survive... without the orders you believe to be a necessity." The captain's voice dwindled to an imperceptible murmuration.

Rivulets of limpid water leaked from the child's eyes, the lucid droplets glissading past sallow, bloodless features. Souji's disheveled, tearful face was a heteroclite facet Kondou had never before attested; he was a boy who had never cried before, despite the inconsolable grief his solitude in society must have caused him.

"I want you to live, Souji... Live, and be who you were meant to be."

His voice was a diminished whisper now, a wisp of light so far away. Receding still, towards the gates of another world dissimilar to the one tarnished by warfare he had left behind.

Souji was destitute for a command. Order me to stop crying. Tell me to save you. Anything. He was a tool, a weapon; he was demeritorious and reprehensible without commands.

Inconsequential, unavailing, worthless.

He could only murmur a name as vigilance abandoned him, consigning the world to irremediable caliginosity.

The infamous rumors lived on, ignominious and foreboding in recurrent fabrication. But the acrimonious records of a nameless boy soldier ended there.

* * *

「あなたは無情武器

以上のものではありません」

_You are a heartless weapon,_

_nothing more._

* * *

**A/N;**

Hello, thank you for reading the first chapter ! It's a bit long, sorry... Anyways, Souji is an oni here, and I know that's really weird, but I think it's actually suitable for the setting. Originally, I planned for him to be a human and later become a fury, but it didn't really make sense for a ten year old boy to be capable of being as efficient of a soldier like Souji is here (honestly, he's more supernatural). Also, he's not aware of anything regarding his bloodline at this point though, hence why he is treated as a weapon by regular people. However, there are historical child soldiers documented during various conflicts, so it's not a complete fantasy. Baby Sou is cute no matter what though (' ') Regarding the violent themes in this story, Hakuouki itself is an anime with many darker scenes depicting a more realistic portrayal of war (spare for the vampires). I wanted to keep the mood of the original storyline, so I apologize to anyone who was expecting a happy story. I'll probably write something for Hakuouki SSL after I complete this one though, just because fluffy cute things are necessary sometimes too.


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